>It's obvious, though, that the short story is dying as a medium that people want to read.Obvious to whom? People have been declaring short stories dead for at least 50 years, but there they are in magazines, collections and themed anthologies that sell well enough that publishers are going back for seconds. The New Space Opera anthology by Gardner Dozois is an example. HarperCollins is already talking about a volume two. Nothing is obvious about the fate of short stories other than they sell less than novels. Always have, always will.

Short fiction is greater than the sum of SF/F/H short fiction. Nothing's inherently wrong with any format, not really. The trick is always the process between finishing the work and getting it in front of eyeballs (or ears, or slimy appendages, or whatever your market uses to consume.).

Thanks for the answer, Warren. Yes, I know I'm crazy. Trouble with producing Murky Depths as a quality mag (I'm not so presumptuous as to claim the stories are brilliant literary pieces - although I like to think we have chosen well - when we aspire to pulp - but it's the only way of doing justice to the artwork) is it weighs more than most digests (which it isn't in any case, it's American comic book size, with a graphic novel feel) and sending a single copy to the States racks up to £2.83. And yet we have almost as many US subscribers as UK. We're very new though and still trying to establish ourselves so I won't embarras us by revealing our sales, they are very insignificant at the moment in comparison to the established mags. But we're doing something different, and maybe being different is how we're going to gain a solid base of subscribers (and it's subscribers that keeps the mags alive, as your blog so clearly reveals). Time will tell. Most people, when they see and hold a copy, are impressed - the wibbly wobbly web doesn't offer people that pleasure (just yet).

Warren said: "You should try to make the effort, or nick someone's printer. It's a lot of fun."

This is true. OTOH, I have a pile of over 100 books I haven't gotten through yet, and probably half of them by YOU! (And Kadrey's new one). And a big chunk of them are best of's and SF short collections, too.

OTOOH, I know that Rudy knows what he's doing. So I should get on the stick. Is it on the stick or off the stick? I have two images battling in my brain on that one.

I'm pretty sure INTERZONE are trying to put themselves out of business, at this point.

Here's the cover for the most recent issue of INTERZONE. See if you can spot the error.

See it yet? Let me help you out.

That's right. A new story by multiple-award-winning author Greg Egan, whose entire bibliography was re-released in paperback by Gollancz in the UK in February. Best not to call attention to that, eh? Bury it in the sidebar with everything else.

I still have high hopes for TTA in re: INTERZONE, but that was an idiot mistake, and makes them look like they don't even want to attract the attention of sf readers.

Not so much a mistake, then, as an error of judgement, or a lost opportunity.

I think that perhaps us sci-fi fans have a soft spot for Interzone even though it's under different management/publishers.

I wonder though if what happened to Apex Digest in the States last year would happen to Interzone in the UK. Jason Sizemore, the Apex publishing editor, blogged on MySpace that he had run out of funds and wasn't able to get Issue #8 printed. The response was so good that not only is he now on Issue #12 but he immediately increased fees to contributors.

If you're not drawing a hard distinction between sf and f, I read <em>Strange Horizons</em>, <em>Fantasy</em>, <em>Subterranean</em>, occasionally <em>Realms of Fantasy</em> and <em>Weird Tales</em> and a handful of others. And anywhere else that publishes me or my friends.

At Murky Depths you can catch up with Issues #0 to #3 and subscribe just by clicking a couple of buttons. But you won't receive GUD, of course.

But it'd be better to subscribe to MD first and then buy back issues - you get them at a cheaper rate (one of the perks of subscribing).

For those interested, we have a brand new six-page strip appearing in Issue #4 by RD Hall (drawn by Denis Pacher - he illustrated The Love Ship Guide to Seduction In Zero Gravity in Issue #3, and Jon Courtenay Grimwood's story in Issue #1), and Issue #4 will almost certainly see the light of day for the first time at Bristol at the beginning of May.

Also, if anyone has a six to ten-page sci-fi, horror (or both) strip ready and raring to go we may well be interested for a future issue.

So rather than highlight the big name they ran with a picture that seems to be saying "Mike Carey has some bad news about your family pets"

Excellent choice.

Not to mention the art is hideous. Moss monsters big scary balls don't make me want to pick this up.

I'd challenge any art director at these magazine to go wander around deviantart.com for 10 minutes and find a half-dozen artists doing more fantastic, strange and new things than are currently being shown.

Art, in fact anything creative, is very subjective. I'm not too keen on the cover for #215 either, but it has a very retro feel to it, belying the contents. I'm actually not a fan of the new Interzone masthead either, but I'm sure lots of other people think it's fab.

>Art, in fact anything creative, is very subjective.Yeah, but the cover of a magazine isn't art. It's about design and creating a sales tool. For me, and most of my snobby friends, a giant bug on the cover says, "I'm a magazine for 12 year olds in 1956." If they were going for pulp irony, why not go all the way and design the cover to look like a Campbell-era issue of Astounding? If they were going forgiant bug allure, well, fuck it.

Don't forget you're also dissin' the artist, Darren Winter, whose illustration inside Interzone #215 for the story "The Endling" by Jamie Barras, would probably have made a much more entertaining cover.

Don't forget you're also dissin' the artist, Darren Winter, whose illustration inside Interzone #215 for the story "The Endling" by Jamie Barras, would probably have made a much more entertaining cover.

I suspect people have less trouble with the skill that went into the piece than that it was a mossy giant bug cover that could really have come off the cover of a similar magazine from fifty and maybe even eighty years ago.

In style, the piece reminded me of Colin McNeil a bit, and it didn't bother me half so much as the Egan thing. Possibly because I'm used to sf magazines having slightly unfortunate covers.